Joe Corona returns home, but with Club America when it plays Xolos

HENRY ROMERO / Reuters Photo

Sweetwater High alum Joe Corona (right), shown here in the CONCACAF Champions League last month against Costa Rica's Deportivo Saprissa, will play for Club America against his former club, the Tijuana Xolos, at SDCCU Stadium on Saturday.

Sweetwater High alum Joe Corona (right), shown here in the CONCACAF Champions League last month against Costa Rica's Deportivo Saprissa, will play for Club America against his former club, the Tijuana Xolos, at SDCCU Stadium on Saturday. (HENRY ROMERO / Reuters Photo)

The Tijuana Xolos face Club America in a soccer exhibition at SDCCU Stadium on Saturday afternoon, and Sweetwater High alum Joe Corona will playing for the iconic Mexico City team.

He will, because of what happened in San Jose, Costa Rica, on Nov. 15, 2016.

It is another one of those crazy tales of tumbling international dominoes that soccer consistently seems to produce, where players ascribe it to “just being meant to be” because there’s no real explanation how something that happens 16 months ago and 2,600 miles away can return a 27-year-old midfielder to his hometown to face his former team.

At the time, Corona’s career was at a crossroads. After an unsuccessful loan stint to Veracruz, the Tijuana Xolos, which still held his contractual rights, shipped him to second-division Dorados of Sinaloa.

But Bruce Arena, coach of the Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy, was interested. He had been since a 2011 friendly at USD’s Torero Stadium between the Galaxy (and star David Beckham) and the Xolos, then in Mexico’s second division. The Xolos won in a penalty shootout and Arena was asked afterward whom on the Tijuana roster he liked.

“No. 15,” he said.

Would it surprise you, Arena was asked, that No. 15 is U.S.-born kid who grew up in South County and played a year at San Diego State?

It took five years, but now Arena was poised to get his man. The deal was being finalized, Corona was ready to leave Mexican soccer for MLS, and …

The U.S. national team, coach by Jurgen Klinsmann, lost a World Cup qualifier 4-0 at Costa Rica on Nov. 15, 2016. Six days later, Klinsmann was fired and Arena was named his emergency replacement. The deal fell apart.

“I was close to signing with Galaxy, very close,” Corona said. “In the end, there was a change in management with the Galaxy and Tijuana decided to bring me back instead.”

So Corona returned to the club that he helped elevate to Mexico’s top division and win the 2012 Liga MX championship.

There was a new coach: Miguel “El Piojo” Herrera.

Corona would reestablish himself as a first-division player, starting 17 times in the central midfield for a Xolos team that finished first in the 2017 Clausura regular season. Herrera would leave in May, returning to Club America and one-by-one bringing former Tijuana players with him.

In December, Corona became the fifth.

And now, Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at SDCCU Stadium, Club America plays the Xolos as part of a North American tour by Mexico’s richest team.

“We knew him when he was with the Xolos, and we decided to bring him to a team of the caliber of Club America,” Herrera said after practice Friday. “He’s a complete player. He has a very good long shot and a lot of control with the ball. He made a lot of sense for our team. We’re very happy with him.”

Herrera was asked about an incident during his first stint as America’s coach, when the Xolos won at Estadio Azteca and Corona robustly celebrated in front of the Aguilas’ bench. There have been reports that Herrera initially held it against Corona when he first took over in Tijuana in 2015.

Herrera laughed it off Friday.

“If you’re with any team, you have to celebrate,” Herrera said. ”I think he had the right to celebrate when he was with the Xolos. And now that he’s with Club America, if he scores a goal he can celebrate just as much. That doesn’t go through my head. Those things aren’t that important to me.”

Corona hasn’t played at America as much as he did under Herrera in Tijuana, starting just twice in the current Clausura season. But the Aguilas are also in the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League, held concurrently with the Liga MX season, and Corona has started three of four games – scoring a spectacular left-footed volley against Panama’s Tauro FC earlier this month.

“Things have been good,” said Corona, who has 20 caps and three goals with the U.S. national team. “We’re in (fourth) place in the league and we’re doing well in the CONCACAF Champions League. The objective is to win both tournaments. I think we have a pretty good squad and we can take both of them.”

The objective for Corona, in the final year of his contract, is for America to exercise the purchase option in the loan agreement with Tijuana.

“Hopefully, Club America buys me and keeps me there for a while,” Corona said. “I’d like to stay there a lot of years.”

And if not?

“I’m always open for MLS,” Corona said. “It’s the country I was born in, and I have a lot of friends (playing it in) who tell me that the league is better every year. Hopefully in the future I can come.”

Tijuana Xolos vs. Club America

Saturday: 4:30 p.m. at SDCCU Stadium

What: Soccer exhibition

Tickets: Start at $35

Outlook: A midseason friendly between teams that know each other well. America coach Miguel “El Piojo” Herrera was at Tijuana last year, and since returning to the Mexico City club he has bought five former Xolos with him: Sweetwater High alum Joe Corona, Guido Rodriguez, Henry Martin, Emanuel Aguilera and Carlos Vargas. These teams played a month ago at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca in Liga MX, a 0-0 tie. America is currently in fourth place with five games remaining in the Clausura season. Tijuana is clinging to eighth, the final playoff spot, but is finally getting healthy after missing four starters. Forward Gustavo Bou returned to practice this week and could get some time Saturday.

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